


The Shadow Behind You

by Bonfoi



Series: The Shadows [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Adult Content, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Dark, Dark, M/M, OOC-ness, TSS, The Silver Snitch, Tragedy, Violence, dark!fic, written in 2005
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-07-22
Updated: 2005-07-22
Packaged: 2017-11-23 09:01:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/620385
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bonfoi/pseuds/Bonfoi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>In a bright world, some corners stay dark...</p>
  <hr/>
  <p>As more often than not, there are no real winners in a war...</p>
</div>
            </blockquote>





	The Shadow Behind You

**Author's Note:**

> My first, and for the longest time, only attempt at tragic prose and heavy angst. Written for the original The Silver Snitch archive site. _Minor editing: 1-2-13._

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**_Disclaimer:_** The world of Harry Potter, its characters and settings are the copyrighted works of J.K. Rowling, Warner Bros., her publishing companies and affiliates. No profit was made from the writing of this story nor was any malice intended in any way, shape or form to the author or the actors/actresses who so brilliantly have brought them to life. 

This author is not responsible for underage readers. Please observe the ratings, warnings, and age of legal consent for your country.

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He killed because he could. No one needed a reason after they were initiated. But, unlike his brethren, he had a damned fine reason to cut those bastards’ throats. In their wisdom, they used up his lover, drained him until he could no longer give them what they wanted, and then…they gave him to the other side!

He’d been a boy when he fell in love. It was a romance like none other, with all the earmarks of a Class-A fairy tale. They met, the sparks flew, they found that they had something in common, they fucked, they kept fucking; then, they woke up and it wasn’t fucking anymore.

He carried his lover’s symbol on his chest, spelled for his eyes only. For the past six months, it was his only touchstone to the happiness they’d shared. Tonight, the last one would be dead…The final coffin readied for the graveyard. They’d have vengeance.

* * *

Albus Dumbledore looked up and frowned. For seven years, he’d been a retired wizard; his necessity had finally been met. He took his half-moon spectacles from his aquiline nose and wiped them with a star-splattered silk handkerchief. Must have been a draft. These old houses were always settling and creaking when the weather changed.

He’d just gotten home a few hours before from yet another funeral. It was a sad state of affairs when a wizard over one hundred and fifty years old was out-living those of twenty, thirty, forty, and fifty. He replaced his spectacles and sighed. He’d outlived his usefulness, and all his friends. Soon, it would be his turn to return from whence all have come…

A steady beat, like someone stepping deliberately on the loudest stairs. Albus knew then that his time was at hand; tonight, he’d finally meet the assassin who had whittled away his closest friends. What had they done to deserve such rancor?

The library door opened with a bang, bouncing from the wall to swing crazily. There, there was the faintest deepening of the darkness just off from the center. And, a sliver of light, thin, along the left-hand side.

Harry Potter stepped forward to finish his revenge. Tonight, this would be the last of them, the traitors and the cowards who had taken his love from him that cold night. 

_All for the good of our world, Harry! He’ll survive, Harry! He’s stronger than anything they can do to him, Harry!_ Every platitude was mouthed, every noble sentiment espoused…every lie told straight to his face.

He was the savior of their world, but they just kept demanding everything. Until there was only his love and his soul left. But, they didn’t care; they took it all. Without a backward glance, or a half-hearted argument, they ripped the heart from his body.

Albus sat still in his old reading chair. He’d often wondered what had happened to Harry. After the debacle with the spies he’d vanished into the night, like he’d been a shared dream that evaporated in the dawn. Yet, here he was…the man who’d sucked the life out of Voldemort with spells researched by Hermione Granger and Ginny Weasley, cast with two wands crafted by none other than Professors Flitwick and Dumbledore. 

The first to die were the Weasleys, the entire family. It had been the thin justifications for sending his lover to his certain doom that had come from Arthur and his sons, Ron and Bill. Ever-logical Hermione, the mate of Ginny, had tried to shore up the arguments, even though they were based in quicksand.

Then, the Malfoys, the heroic visions of what spies for the Light should look like, sound like, bloody smell like! The trademark blond tresses had been pinned to the door of Malfoy Manor for weeks.

And, so on and so forth, Harry had worked his way through the Order of the Phoenix until he was left with the cancerous beginning: Dumbledore. The man who had always manipulated and twisted his life, until he had killed each tender thing in it.

“Do you know that with his dying breath, he still called you ‘friend’, you lying sack of shit? For twenty-years, he gave you his life; you couldn’t give him twenty-five in return? All we wanted was to spend time loving each other! Why was it so important that he go that last time?” The edge of loneliness had given way months ago to burning madness. Their savior didn’t give a rat’s ass anymore, because there was no love to make the world bright. But, before he killed the leader that had taken his lover from him, he wanted a reason…

“Harry, he knew he was dying. Too many curses, too many potions. It was all catching up to him. He didn’t want you to see him deteriorating into nothingness.” The tired voice faded into the dark.

A few soft footfalls, a whisper of sound, and there was nothing but firelight and the dying gurgles of an old wizard.

* * *

Harry woke up screaming, clutching blindly at the covers of their bed. Severus wrapped his long arms around the man who had saved them all last night. He’d been screaming off and on for a day. By now, that beloved voice was broken, and might never be like the one that had cried out during their shared pleasure.

He could only rock the tortured soul cringing in his arms, back and forth, back and forth. Why did Voldemort have to leave him like this? Trapped somewhere he couldn’t follow?

**~~~ FINIS ~~~ ******

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_~~~ Comments, like rain in the desert, are greatly appreciated.  
Thank you for reading. ~~~_  



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